A father-daughter trip to Poland, shortly after the fall of the Iron Curtain. Father Edek actually never wanted to go back to the place where almost his entire family was wiped out in the Shoah. And yet now, against all expectations, he quickly warms to Poland while daughter Ruth wrestles with her unpredictable father's charisma.
Together with taxi driver Stefan, the pair set off - to Warsaw, Łódź, Krakow and Auschwitz-Birkenau. Edek (Stephen Fry) is a picture of demonstrative composure on returning to the places of his childhood. It is up to his daughter Ruth (Lena Dunham) to buy back the family porcelain from the Polish family which, in the early 1940s, moved into the apartment of Edek's family – the very place from which they were deported. Whilst the father quickly warms to all things Polish, the daughter grows exasperated. She poses the questions that her father, suddenly quite the bon vivant, is keen to avoid. She tries to get to the bottom of the things that he has long suppressed. This not only brings to the surface traumata inherited through the generations, but also the entire malaise of a far from uncomplicated father-daughter relationship – that is until Ruth gets fed up with Edek's evasiveness. With this adaptation of Lily Brett's novel "Too Many Men" (1999), Julia von Heinz brings a heavy topic, captured with a light touch, to the big screen, all the while engaging seriously both with the story and her audience. An emotional balancing act between family fate and trauma, father and child, historical gravity and the contradictory lightness of the moment.
Text: Bernd Buder
English: Peter Rickerby
Credits
original title Treasure - FAMILIE IST EIN FREMDES LAND
international title Treasure
german title Treasure - FAMILIE IST EIN FREMDES LAND
JFBB section Feature Film Competition
country/countries DE/FR
year 2024
duration 112
Julia von Heinz
BIO Julia von Heinz (*1976) is one of Germany's most successful filmmakers. In 2007, she won the LOLA for Best Children's and Youth Film with her debut WAS AM ENDE ZÄHLT. Her film adaptation of the bestseller ICH BIN DANN MAL WEG was seen by almost 2,000,000 viewers in German cinemas. Her film UND MORGEN DIE GANZE WELT premiered in competition at the 2020 Venice Film Festival and was nominated for the 2021 LOLA for Best Feature Film. Her contribution to the omnibus film ISOLATION screened at the 2021 Venice Film Festival as part of the Giornate degli Autori. TREASURE, which premiered at the 2024 Berlinale, is the third part of Julia von Heinz' Aftermath trilogy, which deals with the effects of the Holocaust in Germany and worldwide. Julia is co-founder of the production company Seven Elephants and teaches directing at the HFF in Munich.
